Studying Community Impacts
Social science is a broad term that covers all the sciences related to studying human beings at multiple scales, such as the individual, family, small group, organization, community, nations, or even whole civilizations. There are many disciplines within this umbrella, including economics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and political science.
This review will draw largely on sociology. Sociology is a discipline that studies how the organization of societies affects individuals and their behaviors, beliefs and attitudes, their health and well-being, and how they interact with other members of their families, workplaces, volunteer groups, and communities. Sociology also looks at the converse relationship, how societies are shaped by the ways in which individuals interact and form different types of groups (e.g., schools, families, places of work, governments, etc.) that are the building blocks of societies.
In relation to Marcellus Shale development, one important area of research that sociologists examine focuses on ‘community impacts,’ a catch-all term for how individuals and families and local organizations, agencies, governments, and businesses are affected by the exploration, extraction, and production of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale. Some of the impacts researchers study include:
- The economic status of individuals and families (such as gaining or losing jobs, or changes to work hours, income, or work conditions) and how these changes affect the well-being of those families and individuals
- Changes in local populations, in terms of size, composition (age, gender, race/ethnicity), migration rates (in and out of the community), size and type of households, etc.
- Changes in unemployment rates, poverty rates, and income inequality which provide insight into a community’s social and economic well-being
- Demands on local organizations and agencies that provide services to community residents, such as health care, education, human services, and local government
- Stresses on the physical components of communities that we rely on for daily living, including housing, roads, water/sewer, telecommunications, etc.
- Prevalence of social problems, such as crime, drug and alcohol use, divorce and related family problems, and mental health concerns, and the impacts of these problems on the systems that address them (courts, police agencies, health service providers, social services, etc.)
- Changes in existing and new residents’ feelings of community satisfaction and attachment to their communities measured by the perceived quality of life and social and physical well-being
Dr. Kathryn Brasier, a professor of rural sociology at Penn State, describes some of the common community and social impacts that are experienced with shale energy development in the following video.
Video: Kathy Brasier, Social Impacts (4:10)
Dave Yoxtheimer: What are some of the social benefits and impacts created by developing energy sources, especially shale oil and shale gas?
Kathy Brasier: So, in Pennsylvania, we've seen a range of impacts. On the positive side, economic growth, jobs, particularly in rural areas that have been seeing economic decline for the last couple decades. Although some of the research indicates that more is for workers coming in, than for resident workers. So there's a question mark in terms of economic benefits. One particular economic benefit is leasing and royalty income. Households have seen thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars of an increase in income from development, if they own their subsurface rights and lease those out. And what we've seen is that people are spending that money largely on savings or paying off debt. They're investing in their future, which is a very positive thing for many rural communities. On the other side, we did see things, particularly early in the development, having to do with population growth stressing community services, leading to increases in crime, traffic and safety issues associated with the trucks on the roads. Noise, in particular, is an issue near the wells and communities having to adapt to new commuting patterns because roads are closed, challenges in getting kids to school, safety concerns about the roads. Those are the primary kinds of impacts we've seen. Community conflict in some communities has also come up. Some people are opposed and some people are supportive, especially around decisions like moratoria or ordinances or leasing of public land, as being that the prime points of conflict.
In terms of how that compares to other shale plays in the U.S., the Marcellus is very unique in that it's a big region with very small communities and relatively large cities, like Pittsburgh and Williamsport, anchoring that geographic space. So the development has been what we call a hub-and-spoke, where the companies will locate headquarters or regional offices in the larger cities and fan their workers out across an hour or two worth drive from those cities. So the kinds of impacts are different depending on where you are in that geographic space, because it's the workers that are the core that impact, just the presence of more people leading to that growth.
Housing has probably been the other place that's the most impacted. Workers need to live somewhere, even if it's temporary, or if it's a more permanent relocation. So housing prices did go up. Rental units, the rent was higher, which pushed families lower on the economic ladder out of the market, essentially. So there were a number of issues relating to displacement, homelessness, and stress on emergency services, to respond to that displacement.
So the other big difference between the Marcellus and those other regions is that we do have a highly interconnected road system, particularly in the southwest part of the state, a little less so in the northern tier. So that allowed workers to disperse more than perhaps would be the comparison in other shale plays, particularly the Bakken. The Bakken is also very rural, but very spread out, and very, very rural. I mean the population density comparison between the two areas is very different. So workers going into the Bakken had a much harder time finding housing and services that they needed. So much greater impacts across the board we're seen in the Bakken, as compared to the Marcellus.
Whether or not you live in an area experiencing shale gas development, you likely hear and see many claims about its social impacts on television news, in the newspaper, or even on your Facebook feed. Many of these headlines and reports contradict each other, and it can be hard, as a consumer of science, to know what to believe. The example headlines below give a sense of the spectrum of shale energy development impacts that the media reports.
"Fracking May Worsen Asthma for Nearby Residents, Study Says"
"Natural Gas Improves Lives in Rural Pennsylvania"
"Drilling Boom Brings Surge in Crime to Small Town"
"PA State Police Reassigned to Gas Drilling Region as Crime Rises"
In this section, you will acquire a handy “toolbox” with ways to assess these reports on the social impacts of shale gas development, first, we need to the distinctions between understand causation, correlation, data, and evidence as defined below.
Causation
One event is the result of the occurrence of the other event. This is also referred to as cause and effect. Beware: just because two things occur together does not mean that one caused the other.
Correlation
A statistical measure that describes the size and direction of a relationship between two or more variables. A correlation between variables, however, does not automatically mean that the change in one variable is the cause of the change in the values of the other variable.
Data
Information, either qualitative or quantitative, that has been collected.
Evidence
Data that has been shown to be valid.